


There's Always Another Low

by CavannaRose



Series: Rose Wilson Fics [13]
Category: Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Ravager - Fandom, Teen Titans (Comics), Terror Titans (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7295818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavannaRose/pseuds/CavannaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose sinks deeper and deeper into her bad habits as her connections disappear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

How many times did one hit rock bottom before they realized they were just a useless piece of trash? Rose had spent so much time there lately it was beginning to feel more like home than a low. She was picking up just enough jobs to fund her increasing list of bad habits. There had been few things that kept her going, those few last strands of hope, all of them slipping through her fingers one by one. The dream that Lillian Worth still lived, dashed on the shores of some distant land where irrefutable proof had been slapped in her lap by an uncaring fate. The closeness she'd shared with a few members of her former team, abandoned as she retreated further and further inward.

She didn't need friends, not when she had Jose Cuervo and Jack Daniels knocking at her door each night. To compensate for the hangovers, she'd been relying more and more heavily on adrenaline to keep her edge when out on the job. So she coughed up a little blood, her serum-enhanced metabolism always healed it in a day or two. Leading Tem on to keep him supplying her, that was getting more strenuous, but without Eddie as her conscience, even that had become less distasteful in the face of her addiction.

At least that's what she kept telling herself.

The truth was she was slipping. Getting sloppy, to the point where the calls coming in were fewer and further between. She wasn't that much sharper than the other options all the time, and inconsistency was not a reputation that a mercenary could build on. Whatever. She never wanted to be a mercenary anyway. That was her father's dream, but the only path she'd felt left open to her after everything that had happened. She was too violent, too quick to react to interact with other humans on a normal level. Eventually everyone got tired of her attitude and left. Lillian, Slade, Joey, Richard, Kori, Eddie...

Maybe she'd been the one to leave Eddie, but she'd actually put herself out there, invited him to join her, and he had known better than to pick it up. Just like everyone else, fading away as she lost herself in the drug that was killing her, and the booze that was helping it. Her flat was an echo of how far she had fallen. Calling it Spartan would be an embellishment. No electricity, no running water. All it had was a milk crate with a dead laptop on it, a pile of stained blankets masquerading as a bed, and a broken down cardboard box with a half-eaten bag of goldfish crackers in it. Of course, there were also a rather obscene number of empty alcohol bottles and discarded adrenaline inhalers and epipens.

She was rarely hungry anymore. Couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten something solid, didn't matter either. The harsh bite of whisky filled her stomach. She sprawled on the blankets, staring at the blank ceiling as she slowly drunk herself into another night's oblivion. She absently flipped a needle in and out between her fingers. Flick flick flick. Flick flick flick. The click of her knuckles the only sound in her flat, other than the faint echoes of some couple going at it a couple doors down. Nobody would call in a domestic disturbance, not in this part of town. Here you paid cash and no one asked questions, just the way she liked it. It was safe, anonymous.

She was drunk enough now she dropped the needle and it went skittering across the sticky floor, but she didn't go after it, instead running her hand through her filthy, tangled hair and adjusting the once-white eye patch to fall more squarely over her scarred eye, instead knocking it even more askew, not that she noticed. Even her hair had taken on a dingy grey tone, she'd let herself go so much. Rose tipped up the bottle once more, finding it empty. With a disgusted curse she tossed it across the far wall, shattering it against the reeking toilet, standing exposed simply against one wall of the flat.

Dragging herself forwards on her hands and knees, she moved among the discarded bottles, holding them to the moonlight eeking in through the smeg-crusted windows, shaking them about in search of some last dregs of cheap nectar to take her the rest of the way into that dreamless sleep she craved so deeply. Another bottle smashed against the wall, her search for succor frustratingly devoid of results. Then she saw it, half rolled behind the toilet. She dragged herself further across the floor, barely noticing the broken glass digging into her shins and side as she wrapped herself around the disgusting privy, desperately stretching her fingers to catch the neck of that last, mostly empty bottle.


	2. Chapter 2

The knock on the door startled her, causing Rose to jerk her head up, cracking it sharply against the stained toilet. Cursing loud and long she skittered backwards, holding her head and resembling nothing more than a three legged crab. She scooted right back to the rumbled pile of blankets she'd been laying on, digging around to pull out her katanas. Here, at least, she'd put some effort into things. The scabbards were pristine, the leather oiled and clean, wrapped in a ragged old shirt to protect it from the filth of the flat. She drew one of the gleaming blades, holding it in front of her as she stumbled across to the door.

It took her a moment to realize she had her blind eye to the peephole, but switching sides didn't show anything else so she whipped the door open, sticking her head and sword out the door. Nothing. She shook her weapon angrily in the air, her drunken voice slurring as she screamed down the hall. "You play ding dong ditch at my door one more time, you little shites, and I will personally crawl in through your windows and slit you from nose to navel, you hear?"

Satisfied she slammed the door with enough gusto it blew a piece of paper up into the air, before dropping it a few inches away. It was enough, at least, to catch Rose's attention and she made several attempts at snatching it, before finally dropping to her knees, carefully laying her blade down on the floor beside herself. She read it through three times before the weight of the words finally penetrated her spirits-soaked mind.

 _To whom it may concern._  
_It is my understanding that you are quite skilled in... problem solving. As it just so happens, I have recently come across a problem of my own which may require your.. finesse._  
_Should you accept my offer, approximately one hundred and fifty thousand dollars will be delivered to you upon completion of the objective._  
_27th floor of the LexCorp building, Downtown Gotham._  
_Go in after dark. They'll be alone. Best of luck._

A job. She was being offered a job. She'd do it, that kind of money didn't come easy, but she had a more important problem. Her brow furrowed, trying to decipher what it was, that little worry niggling at her mind.... Someone knew where she was. Most jobs she got through calls to her burner phone or e-mail, this one had been slipped under her damn door. Rose didn't like that, not one bit. It would be dark soon, but she placed a few calls. Not to friends, she didn't have those anymore, but to a few useful people who owed her a favour. Hopefully they could trace the source of the note.

Picking herself and her katana off the floor, she slid the sword back into it's sheathe and gathered up the second one. She'd have to move quickly it she wanted to get this done. Slinging the scabbards over her shoulder, she pulled her pieces of armour out from the ratty rags of the bed, and took a last look around. The facts were simple, she couldn't return here. One more pause to pick up the epipen needle she'd dropped earlier, she might need the extra edge, and she was out the rear door and over the side of the balcony. Feet moving quietly across the pavement, she didn't look back. After all, it's not like that was a place to call home she was leaving behind.

Her guy hadn't been able to tell her anything about the note, but that was fine. Not every lead panned out. He had, reluctantly, allowed her to borrow his shower so now she at least didn't reek of booze and stale sweat. She pulled her hair, pristine and white once more, into a loose ponytail, before tying on her face mask. The sad, dirty creature that she had been mere hours before was once again the Ravager. She pulled a mickey from her waistband, taking a nip for courage before tucking it away again. This shouldn't be too hard a job.

Arriving at the location, she examined the towering office building curiously. LexCorp was a Metropolis based company, she knew. Led by Lex Luthor, business mogul, and occasional Very Bad Guy. Genetically, he was one half of the cocktail that made up Conor Kent, a young man she'd once called friend, before her attitude and anger finally became too much for him. He had enough of both of his own, after all.

She watched the sun set from the top of her bike in an alley behind the building, quietly counting the minutes and sipping from the mickey she'd brought along, just to pass the time you know. Finally it was dark, and she checked her weapons, putting the booze back where she'd withdrawn it from, next to the adrenaline. Each of them a crutch she barely realized was holding her up. With practiced movements, she scaled the outside of the building. No one would be looking, here in the back alley, and the glass windows showed floor after empty floor.

She was not at peak condition, anymore. Too many months of hard drinking and adrenaline abuse, so by the time she reached the 27th floor, even her enhanced abilities were feeling drained. She paused outside, hanging off the building, her arms shaking. It took her almost a full five minutes to recover, dangling there like a forgotten Christmas ornament. Finally she caught her breath, pulling free one of her katana to wedge under the window, prying it open little by little. She just managed to catch the glass before it fell, cutting her hand through the glove and eliciting a low curse.

Once she had wriggled in through the open window, she set the glass pane down and examined the injury on her hand. There wasn't much she could do now, so she removed the glove and her mask, tying the mask around the wound to staunch the blood flow. Even now she didn't realize how far she had fallen, how much she had lost to the haze of alcohol. She patted at her waistband, tapping the bottle and the needle lightly to comfort herself, before adjusting her eye patch and settling her face into a grim line. Now all she had to do was find the unlucky bastard and kill him.


	3. Chapter 3

She turned to examine the layout of the floor she was on, and suddenly the world was pitched into darkness. Immediately Rose got tense, hand once more darting, not for her weapon, but for the adrenaline she'd brought along. It was a crutch, and one she was leaning on far too heavily these days. Her only thought was that if she had taken it earlier, she would have known this was a trap. Her first instinct was to head right back out that window and disappear. No amount of money was really worth walking into a setup this obvious, but she was mad.  
  
She muttered angrily under her breath, drawing her katanas. "Think you can catch a Wilson sleeping jerkoff? Think again..." She padded down the centre aisle, blades held at the ready, slowly making her way towards that single, glowing computer monitor that beckoned like a bug zapper in the distance. She was no moth, though, and someone was about to learn that the hard way. She was angry, arrogant... a shadow of the glorious creature she once was, but even that was a match for the common shmuck.   
  
Ten feet away from the room, the pressure, the need, it was too strong and she sheathed the blade in her left hand, reaching into her belt to withdraw the thin adrenaline needle. She flipped it across her fingers, the hunger a raging beast inside her. It was dark, she was already at a challenge visually... it would help her be more aware of her surroundings. Tell her if she was about to be jumped. 1001 arguments roared inside her brain, demanding she give into the drug.  
  
The sound of the lid hitting the floor as she flicked it off the epipen was loud in the mostly silent building, a fine counterpart to the electric hum of the computer up ahead and Rose's increasingly ragged breathing. Need drove her now, not logic, or a desire to get the job done. She hooked her thumb under her shirt, dragging the fabric up across her waist. Where once she'd had an impressive, firm set of abs to display due to her constantly hitting the gym, now a diet of almost exclusively alcohol and adrenaline had left her whip-thin, almost gaunt, her flesh barely stretched over ribs and hip bones, deep hollows at her waist. She looked almost... fragile.  
  
Once more the needle flicked across her hand, settling into the crook of her thumb as she measured three fingers away from her belly button. They didn't actually recommend abdominal injections for someone as thin as she was, but she didn't care. Her sword hung loosely in her hand now, point directed at the floor, longing and eager anticipation on her face as she plunged the needle into the flesh, practically scraping bone she had become so emaciated with her neglect.   
  
A sigh escaped her lips as the liquid fire roared through her veins, setting her synapses aflame. Her own unique ability, one she may never have known she had if not for her father's interference. Senses more alive than they had been seconds before spread out across the floor, registering the sound of a single heartbeat other than her own... and it certainly wasn't coming from the body in the office. She let out a low hiss. She had about 15 minutes before the overuse of the drug started to come back at her, causing her to bleed through her nose as her longs filled up with blood. That was bearable, but the coughing made fighting hard.   
  
Tossing the used needle aside she drew her other blade, finally, and moved into the darkest shadows on the floor. She wasn't sure who was lurking, but she'd be damned if they were going to get the drop on her. The adrenaline always reacted oddly with the serum that had changed her, amping up her anger and aggression. "I know you're here. Show yourself, you coward!"


	4. Chapter 4

_"Do you enjoy constantly disappointing me, Rose?"_

His voice washed over her like a bucket of ice water, sending shivers down her spine. Inwardly she cursed. Of course it was him, it was always him when the world was shitting on her. He couldn't seem to resist making her life more horrible when she'd just about had as much as she could take. Her lip curled upward in a sneer. He was a better fighter than her in every way, it wouldn't do to get your arse handed to you by your own child after all, but that didn't mean she couldn't hurt him.

_"Is this all a game to you?"_

She winced, closing her eyes for a moment as the lights went on, keeping her senses focused on Slade. She did not want to miss an attack as she readjusted to the fluorescent glare. Instead she halted her approach, maintaining her place, though the adrenaline she had injected left a tremor in her limbs, the smallest shake that prevented her from attaining the perfect stillness she had once learned at the knee of the man who faced her.

She had been perfect, once. A perfect weapon, every moment practiced and disciplined, but that had fallen down the wayside as she had sunk deeper and deeper into herself. It had started back with the Titans, but after Eddie's death... well nothing truly mattered that much anymore, now did it? She had nothing, no one, just as she was nothing. Even this... whatever it was, had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Slade, she would bet money on that.

"Everything's a game, Slade. Disappointing you is just a delightful side effect. Just a little something to smile about when everything goes ass-up. What are you doing here? I know it's not some misguided concern for my well-being." A thought crossed her mind, causing an unpleasant smile to cross her face. "Did someone suggest you need to get your house in order? Is the vaunted Slade Wilson considered somewhat... less because his spawn is an alcoholic? How cute."

She sheathed her swords in a dismissive gesture, as if he no longer was anything for her to be worried about. She forced her shoulders to relax as she actually turned her back on her sire. "You could have saved yourself the trouble of this grand gesture. You and your image don't matter two shits to me, so I have no interest in straightening myself out."

She felt that first trickle of liquid in her lungs, and almost swore. She was supposed to have ten minutes, but apparently she'd been leaning a little too heavily on the adrenaline lately. She'd hoped to at least get out of her father's line of sight, instead the coughing fit took hold of her, almost staggering her with the ferocity of it. The gloved hand she covered her mouth with was soaked in blood, and a crimson thread meandered from her nose down to her lip. "Fuck." She muttered vehemently.

In a blink her one blade was in her hand again. pointed at Slade. "You stay right the fuck where you are, I'll deal with this, then you."


End file.
